Or you could also make 8,000 downloads at $4.50 RPD, and still make a living.

and I was thinking that downloads were going down

Quote from: cclapper on April 07, 2013, 09:55

Quote from: shudderstok on April 06, 2013, 21:00

Quote from: ShadySue on April 06, 2013, 06:39

Quote from: shudderstok on April 06, 2013, 00:55

Quote from: sjlocke on April 05, 2013, 19:56

I think it indicates people are hesitant to post anything unless couched in platitudes.

or maybe it was just a great month over there at IS. sure was for me 

Sure wasn't for me; almost 50% down on dls; around 40% down on $$ compared to last March. Jetlagged, so haven't worked it out exactly yet. April has started equally dismally.

(Nevertheless, I see no reason why someone has minused your post.)

My posts get minused because i don't think the same as most posters here. so the flock mentality tends to get upset. it's supposed to be a bad thing to have success at IS and Getty. i should be a "Stock Groupie" and deify certain people and take everything they say as gospel, and then have an emotional outburst and drop the crown. -1 -1 -1 LOL.

No, you get the minuses because of posts like that one. And I don't see a flock mentality here...most everyone (excluding the obvious trolls), I think, are very intelligent and think the same as I do. You call it flock mentality. I call it great minds thinking parallel. 

i think the post was about this comment

or maybe it was just a great month over there at IS. sure was for me 

which was up to -6 at one point.

i am not so sure why there is such a hate on for any success at IS and anything positive about it is instantly ranked as a minus.

i agree with you that most people here are intelligent and think like you do, but what gets me is why is it such a bad thing to say you had a good month at IS?

This seems to be true whenever anyone makes a positive remark about IS. I get there are some folks here left with a bad taste in their mouths from IS... And I get why. I wish they would be more open that there are some folks still doing fine with IS. And watch out for respectfully disagreeing with any of the regulars here as they will group together and treat you as a troll. Still plenty of helpful folks here too though. This place is way more open and helpful than Istocks forums

Shudderstock I haven't been closely following things around here long enough to know what all the fuss is about, but I think the range of views and opinions allowed here is good for this forum against the iStock one.  But allowing people to remain anonymous can lead to problems, you only need to look at the comment sections of online newspapers to see that.

Anyway, what are your views about the current level of success and the direction things are going at iStock?  Colbalt mentioned some positive recent changes such as an upcoming lapse and the weekly showcase policy.

For me it's good to see these things, and they look like the work of iStock staff doing what they can to improve things.

But IMO it's going to take some effort from the people running iStock from higher up to reverse the damaging trend they've set in motion.  It seems iStock don't even have their own people to keep the search running and optimised, and we've seen (and are still seeing) what damage that does.

iStock have lost or got rid of a lot of staff, contributors and customers.  And the policy from the top continues to be monetize harder!  For me, iStock's future looks bleak if their #1 policy continues to be to find ways to increase their commission at the contributors cost.

I don't know if you're exclusive or indy, but are you concerned about how iStock is being run, or do you think they're getting things right?

i am exclusive if you need to know...

do i like getty? NO do i like IS? sort of

i guess there are two answers to your question.

as far as a company goes, they are only concerned about one thing, and one thing only... positive cash flow and returns for the company, which is fair enough as that is how a company is run. do i like how they screw us over with crappy royalties? NO. Do I see any other stock company as being any different? NO, with the exception of what Stocksy is trying to accomplish, but do remember, the former owner was no different than Getty is in terms of being a business, and rightly so, he busted his ass to do that and deserves every cent he made by selling out. SS will be on the same train soon enough, they are a publicly traded company, and the reality is they only give a hoot about one thing, making money, making shareholders happy, paying dividends etc. but the answer to you question strictly from a business perspective is yes, I think Getty has their act together in a big way, and don't see them crashing any time soon.

as far as being a contributor is concerned i think Getty is not fair at all to us to pay only 20% on RF images. The rates for RM are a bit better at %30 - 40% depending on where the images were sold. I think IS should be ashamed to pay non - exclusives only 15%, that is sick in my opinion, but also a lot better than 0.25c SS is paying. I think the RC system is complete crap. i think the IS contract is complete crap in terms of not being able to submit to any other RF site, even rejects. There are a lot of things I don't like about IS. I think they should fire Lobo, i don't think there is any need to have a sarcastic, condescending, moderator as such. and yes, i did mention all of this on the survey they recently sent out. I don't know the direction of the company as i am only a contributor, but i do have confidence they will do what they do best, and that is sell images.

so i guess my answer to your question is yes, i think Getty/IS has their act together in terms of market share, future vision, profitability, etc etc. They are an incredibly successful company, they know their market well. As for being a contributor, well... i don't like them for pretty much all of the reasons many other shooters don't, but they have the upper hand, or the ace up their sleeve, we are disposable, and we need them, they don't need us. A case in point would be Sean.

That all said, I really don't see any difference between agency abc and agency xyz. They are all into it to make money, and that is the bottom line. i have seen a lot of changes in this industry, and i can say it has slowly been on the decline in terms of profitability from a photographers perspective, yet the agencies keep making more and more money. i am not for or against any agency, but i do know that i will not jeopardize my income based on emotions and following the herd. if those that have dropped the crown are happy doing so, power to them, but i am not prepared to give up 50% of my income to try and get it back elsewhere in addition creating more work uploading to other agencies. No thanks.

i still make a good living shooting stock, but have seen that slowly go down over the years, mostly in the last 10 years since the advent of microstock, digital, and the web, and more notably in the last few years. i predict this downward trend will continue, yet the profits of these agencies will grow. there are simply too many photographs available from too many sources, and mostly for too cheap.

I am not a getty apologist at all as one person called me, but i really don't see where else to go and place my images. There are lot's of options for sure, but they don't work for me, so for now i will just tough it out as and IS exclusive and a Getty house contributor, and bloody cross my fingers I sell some photos.

i choose to be anonymous for a few reasons, mostly being that i don't like to attach my real name or my IS psuedonym name to public forums. in fact i am very surprised some people say the things they do on these forums in regards to companies that can and will cancel their contracts. not too smart in my opinion.

Re. Shudderstock's post...

I agree that there's nothing unusual or wrong with a company being concerned about positive cash flow and returns.

But then you go on to describe the rates they are paying and the ways they are treating contributors as 'crap'.

My opinion is that in the long term, especially with the way the industry continues to open up beyond the reach of Getty group, iStock/Getty will have to realise that those two things above are mutually incompatible.  Over the past few years right up to recent weeks, we've already seen plenty of damage done to iStock's credibility and bottom line as a result of the way they've treated contributors.  Is this likely to get better or worse if they maintain their current approach?

Increasing cash flow more and more by screwing contributors more and more is totally and utterly unsustainable, and I think they've already pushed it too far.  To their own loss.

Customers and contributors are able to move between sites relatively easy, and if one group leaves in significant numbers, the other won't be far behind.

Re. Shudderstock's post...

I agree that there's nothing unusual or wrong with a company being concerned about positive cash flow and returns.

But then you go on to describe the rates they are paying and the ways they are treating contributors as 'crap'.

My opinion is that in the long term, especially with the way the industry continues to open up beyond the reach of Getty group, iStock/Getty will have to realise that those two things above are mutually incompatible.  Over the past few years right up to recent weeks, we've already seen plenty of damage done to iStock's credibility and bottom line as a result of the way they've treated contributors.  Is this likely to get better or worse if they maintain their current approach?

Increasing cash flow more and more by screwing contributors more and more is totally and utterly unsustainable, and I think they've already pushed it too far.  To their own loss.

Customers and contributors are able to move between sites relatively easy, and if one group leaves in significant numbers, the other won't be far behind.

Perhaps so, or perhaps not, only time will tell on this one.

Walmart pays the lowest rates on wages they possibly can, and they  pay the lowest rates to suppliers as they can often purchasing from third world countries to "maximize" profits for shareholders, but they do keep getting bigger and bigger, they keep churning those profits and guess what, the masses still shop there not really giving a crap how much they are supporting this, even if it screws over the local businesses. The same could be said for Getty and photo buyers. I don't think photo buyers care too much about our petty concerns, even if it affects our livelihoods.

I don't know if they have pushed it too far to their loss, as it is a privately held company and we will never know. to give you an idea H&F bought and sold the company in a very few short years and doubled their money, so yes they are making money, sadly to our detriment.

this will be my last reply on this topic. i think we can all agree we are fed up with the way we are being treated by getty and IS, but i think if we actually open our eyes and man up on this, the whole industry is treating us like crap. i think this usury goes far beyond the getty group of companies.

gclk- thanks for replying with though provoking questions, it's more challenging than being slagged or chastised at every twist and turn.

may we all make money doing what we love doing, taking photos.

peace out.

I believe that Istock will reduce to being a minor player within the microstock industry, in less than two years from now, with very few exclusive contributors.

Unless things change, make that 'by the end of 2013'.

istock is already dead. The best match is still broken but my files are pretty well placed in the best match.... no sales thought. no more buyers.

I agree with Gostwyck.

I'm not fond of IS (understatement) however I see SS becoming much less contributor friendly of late. This position toward new content (massive rejections) from SS and the new rates on BS just allows IS the breathing room it needs to recover. Sadly IS/GI is clever..... very clever and SS mistakes will allow a recovery for IS/GI. New content is king and who gets the most wins no matter how these companies want to spin the facts making it seem we don't matter......we do in fact we control the content and its flow. This is only my opinion.

I'm not fond of IS (understatement) however I see SS becoming much less contributor friendly of late. This position toward new content (massive rejections) from SS and the new rates on BS just allows IS the breathing room it needs to recover. Sadly IS/GI is clever..... very clever and SS mistakes will allow a recovery for IS/GI. New content is king and who gets the most wins no matter how these companies want to spin the facts making it seem we don't matter......we do in fact we control the content and its flow. This is only my opinion.

Massive rejections?  I don't see that.  They've always had some bad reviewers, like most of the sites.  I occasionally get more rejections than usual but it's always been temporary and most of the time they've had a very high acceptance rate.

I agree with you about the new rates with BS.  That's such a huge error and I'm still in shock that Jon Oringer didn't step in and fix that.  I'm sure a large part of the success of SS is because they haven't cut commissions like the other big sites in recent years.  They've shattered that by allowing a site they own to pay us less commission for subs.

But I don't think IS/GI are clever.  It would of been easy to crush the other microstock sites at one point, by paying us a bit more.  Then when there was little competition, they could of got away with cutting commissions.  Instead, they ruined their reputation with the majority of contributors and built up their competition.  Why would clever people make such a dumb mistake?  It might not of killed istock but it's so damaged now that I can't see it ever dominating the microstock business again.  They missed their chance and they wont get another one.

I also haven't noticed there being more rejections on SS

Nor have I. If anything the opposite. When I do a search and then click on 'Newest' I'm often appalled by what they have accepted, both in quality, quantity and also in keyword spamming. Fortunately the SS search facility is sophisticated enough to make most of those images 'disappear' fairly quickly.

Quote from: MisterElements on April 08, 2013, 21:00

I'm not fond of IS (understatement) however I see SS becoming much less contributor friendly of late. This position toward new content (massive rejections) from SS and the new rates on BS just allows IS the breathing room it needs to recover. Sadly IS/GI is clever..... very clever and SS mistakes will allow a recovery for IS/GI. New content is king and who gets the most wins no matter how these companies want to spin the facts making it seem we don't matter......we do in fact we control the content and its flow. This is only my opinion.

Massive rejections?  I don't see that.  They've always had some bad reviewers, like most of the sites.  I occasionally get more rejections than usual but it's always been temporary and most of the time they've had a very high acceptance rate.

I agree with you about the new rates with BS.  That's such a huge error and I'm still in shock that Jon Oringer didn't step in and fix that.  I'm sure a large part of the success of SS is because they haven't cut commissions like the other big sites in recent years.  They've shattered that by allowing a site they own to pay us less commission for subs.

But I don't think IS/GI are clever.  It would of been easy to crush the other microstock sites at one point, by paying us a bit more.  Then when there was little competition, they could of got away with cutting commissions.  Instead, they ruined their reputation with the majority of contributors and built up their competition.  Why would clever people make such a dumb mistake?  It might not of killed istock but it's so damaged now that I can't see it ever dominating the microstock business again.  They missed their chance and they wont get another one.

I think we judge sites bases on our experiences.  A year and a half ago I started getting mass rejections at SS after 7 years of almost 100% acceptance.  I am fine with rejections when they make sense, however these were completely off and the entire batch was always rejected. At one point I quit uploading because every batch was rejected and I was hearing the same thing from some very high end shooters.  This went on for about 6 month and I took a long break from uploading to SS because of it. I started uploading again after a long break and found that once again that 99% of my images are being accepted. While everything is back to normal for me, I am not surprised to hear that other submitters are experiencing the former.

If I had not experienced the bizarre run of rejections I would tend to agree with you. However my experience has coloured my view of the SS review process.

I agree with your IS summary.  As for BS, I suspect that Jon was involved with the entire decision and it is part of his long term business plan to improve cost per sale.